Volkswagen Group Research Works with Altair and Uses Nvidia Technology on AWS to Accelerate Aerodynamics Concept Design

Many traditional simulations take too long to complete and weaken a car manufacturer’s ability to successfully engineer for optimal aerodynamic performance and flow physics while also designing for style. To address this challenge, Volkswagen Group Research decided to explore new computational technologies to shorten its simulation and development cycles.

Volkswagen Group Research turned to Altair to trial the use of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver using NVIDIA GPUs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), specifically by using Altair’s ultraFluidX solution. Altair conducted a comprehensive Proof of Concept (PoC) for Volkswagen Group Research, conducting two Design of Experiments (DoE) cycles, consisting of 100 simulation runs each to be turned around within five business days.

Following the successful PoC, the CAE Methods team at Volkswagen Group Research gained confidence in the capabilities of running ultraFluidX on AWS. The PoC resulted in not only high-quality CFD results produced by ultraFluidX, but also impressive robustness, degree of automation, and turnaround time demonstrated by the solution. The team was able to run 200 car shape variants in a time frame that would typically correspond to only a few runs with its current operational tools.

Following a successful PoC, Altair estimates Volkswagen could save up to 70 percent of its current hardware cost using ultraFluidX.